Coming price cuts at McDonald’s may signal a broader fast food price war

McDonald’s is cutting prices on some combo meals to woo back customers who’ve been turned off by the rising costs of grabbing a fast food meal.

The price drop may induce its rivals, who have run into some of the same pricing issues, to follow.

Starting Sept. 8, McDonald’s will offer Extra Value Meals, which combine select entrées like a Big Mac, an Egg McMuffin or a McCrispy sandwich with medium fries or hash browns and a drink. Prices will vary by location, but McDonald’s said Extra Value Meals will cost 15% less than ordering each of those items separately.

To kick off the promotion, McDonald’s will offer an $8 Big Mac meal or a $5 Sausage McMuffin meal for a limited time in most of the country. Customers in California, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam will have to pay $1 more for those meals.

Hotel-weary evacuees guests at powwow

SIOUX VALLEY DAKOTA NATION — Evacuees displaced from their communities in northern Manitoba were invited to Sioux Valley Dakota Nation on Friday for what the chief called a mental health day.

A hundred people were at the afternoon event when the Brandon Sun visited.

The event, which included live music, games and children’s entertainment, was a way to give a day of fresh air to evacuees, Chief Vince Tacan said.

“We thought we’d give our relatives from the north a mental health day, because staying in hotels gets hard after a while,” Tacan said.

As AI becomes part of everyday life, it brings a hidden climate cost

Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts.

“We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment,” she said.

Her personal AI use isn't unique anymore. Now it’s a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.

And it's getting harder to live without it.

Searing heat draws visitors to California’s Death Valley, where it’s tough to communicate the risks

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — Ray Estrada's 11-year-old grandson is used to Las Vegas' scorching summers, but he'd always wanted to experience the heat in one of the Earth's hottest places. So Estrada recently drove him to Death Valley National Park, with an umbrella, extra water and electrolytes in tow. That day, the thermometer soared to 118 F (47.78 C).

“We have to be very careful when we go out there,” Estrada told him. “If you start feeling dizzy or whatever... we’re just gonna turn back and be safe so we can do this again another time.”

The extreme temperatures in this stretch of California desert attract visitors every year, some determined to finish a grueling, multiday race, others just curious about the sizzling heat and the landscape's vast beauty. Yet despite the warnings, the heat kills one to three people annually, and park rangers respond to overheated visitors multiple times per week, making communication about heat safety a priority for the National Park Service.

But that's easier said than done.

Keeping fur babies fed in a fire zone

FLIN FLON — Harley Eagle became an expert at breaking into houses during the month-long evacuation of this northern community as a wildfire raged nearby.

However, he had the homeowners’ permission.

While 5,100 Flin Floners waited out the fire in southern Manitoba, Eagle and his wife, city councillor Judy Eagle, offered to stay behind and feed animals that didn’t make the trip with their owners.

“It was groundhog day every day. You get up at 5:30 a.m., go to the community hall, make the coffee and then that’s when you start caring for all the animals,” he said Wednesday afternoon, as residents slowly made their way back to their homes and pets.

More than 7,000 elms felled in Winnipeg last year due to disease

A city report reveals elm trees were chopped down more than expected last year due to Dutch elm disease.

‘I hope that we don’t lose the town’: Snow Lake residents get mandatory evacuation order

Another wildfire-threatened town in northern Manitoba began a mandatory evacuation Friday, while a 140-kilometre-long blaze threatened multiple communities in two provinces and put evacuees on tenterhooks.

Snow Lake, home to about 1,100 people, ordered residents to get out before noon Saturday and head to an evacuation reception centre in Winnipeg if they need a place to stay.

“I put the sprinkler on my home, and locked the door and left,” resident Caroline Denby told the Free Press during her roughly seven-hour drive to Winnipeg. “I hope that we don’t lose the town. Everybody getting out is the main thing. I really trust our (fire) crew, and believe they’re really wonderful at what they do.”

Town officials started planning for a potential evacuation as early as about two weeks ago. A voluntary evacuation began Tuesday. Denby was ready to go when it became mandatory.

‘Pray for rain’: wildfire races toward Flin Flon

Premier Wab Kinew urged Manitobans to remain calm Friday, a pivotal day in the war on wildfires in which shifting winds sent flames bearing down on Flin Flon, more people had to be evacuated from more communities and desperately needed resources were promised by the United States.

“Keep calm and carry on,” Kinew told an afternoon news conference at the legislature.

He said the threat to Flin Flon, about 830 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, had become so severe that the mayor, council and the few others who remained after a citywide evacuation order issued Wednesday afternoon had no choice but to leave Friday.

“We had our health-care workers leave this morning… the only folks remaining on the ground are the firefighters and folks in the office of the fire commissioner and RCMP who are there to battle the blaze,” Kinew said.

The penny costs nearly 4 cents to make. Here’s how much the US spends on minting its other coins

NEW YORK (AP) — The impending “death” of the U.S. penny has spotlighted the coin's own price tag — nearly 4 cents to make and distribute each, or quadruple its value.

Months after President Donald Trump called on his administration to cease penny production, the U.S. Mint announced this week that it had made its final order of penny blanks — and plans to stop making new 1 cent coins after those run out.

Coin production costs vary thanks to different raw metals used, complexity of their designs, labor needed and more. Many of those expenses have been on the rise — and the penny isn't the only coin entering our wallets today that costs more to make than it's worth (enter the nickel debate).

Here's a rundown of U.S. Mint production costs from the government's latest fiscal year.

Getting river rehab rolling: Other cities' success in stemming effluent offer splashes of hope for Winnipeg's waterways

From giant cisterns to rain gardens, storage tunnels and parks, cities across Canada — and the rest of the world — have shown there are plenty of options to stop the overflow of sewage into freshwater.

Charleswood residents fume over destroyed trees

Frustrated residents are calling on the city and province to get to the root of the problem that led to the destruction of nearly two dozen mature trees in Charleswood on the weekend.

Early Saturday morning, a building moving company began to move a display home near the corner of Roblin Boulevard and Scotswood Drive. The home was too wide to clear mature trees along Roblin’s median.

When Winnipeg Police Service officers arrived to provide a previously scheduled escort for the movers at about 7 a.m. they discovered 17 trees had been cut down, allegedly by the driver of the vehicle hauling the house, police spokesman Const. Rob Carver said.

“Immediately, upon determining that the trees had been cut and linking it to this move, the move was halted and, ultimately, the driver (was) arrested,” said Carver.

Robot umpires are coming to MLB. Here’s how they work

NEW YORK (AP) — Robot umpires are coming to the big leagues this year.

The Automated Ball/Strike System will be introduced in the form of a challenge system in which the human umpire makes each call, which can be appealed to the computer. Robot umpires have been tested in the minor leagues since 2019, with recent testing done at Triple-A since 2022, MLB spring training last year and at the 2025 All-Star Game in Atlanta.

Here's what to know about MLB's robot umps.

How does the Automated Ball-Strike System work?

‘Fly WestJet, see a UFO’

The truth is out there — or at least it could be outside the cockpit of a WestJet flight.

In an incident reported by NAV Canada to Transport Canada on Friday, WestJet pilots had reported they had flown by “a basketball-sized object at 13,000 feet” during a flight from Winnipeg to Calgary on Jan. 19.

The pilots, of flight WJA485, were flying just northwest of Canmore at the time and descending to land in Calgary when the incident occurred.

NAV Canada has classified the incident, under occurrence event information, as a “weather balloon, meteor, rocket, CIRVIS/UFO.” CIRVIS stands for Communications Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings.

Most vulnerable will pay the most for federal budget cuts

As the federal government reallocates funds to deal with a $78 billion deficit, the loss of prison librarian positions threatens to undermine rehabilitation efforts for marginalized inmates.

Finance minister’s budget preview focuses on little feet

Manitoba’s finance minister — who had bags of children’s shoes in tow — announced Friday that families and affordability measures would feature prominently in Tuesday’s budget.

Adrien Sala went to Linwood Child Centre, his children’s former daycare, to announce that 2,000 childcare spaces would open within the province.

Tuesday’s budget will also include a 2.9 per cent increase to wages paid to early childhood educators as of September.

“We’re looking to make sure that we invest in you guys, our next generation,” Sala said, steps from children at Linwood.

Gas pains: soaring prices due to Mideast conflict could lead to energy turning point in Canada

Veteran actor Billy Bob Thornton may seem like an unlikely source of wisdom about the world’s relentless dependence on oil. Then again, it would be hard to find a better, more poignant description of the global addiction than a diatribe he delivered in a recent episode of Landman, a melodrama set in the Texas oil industry.

Thornton’s character, Tommy Norris, a crisis manager for a large oil company, is walking through a wind turbine farm that generates electricity to power remote oil rigs. Norris notes that over a wind turbine’s 20-year lifespan, the “clean” energy it produces won’t offset the carbon emitted in the manufacturing of its components or its installation. The same economics, Norris says, can be applied to solar panels and batteries for electric vehicles.

Then, the punchline.

“Our whole lives depend on (oil). And hell, it’s in everything — that road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours. It’s in tennis rackets and lipstick and refrigerators and antihistamines. Pretty much anything plastic: your cellphone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers. Soap, f—king hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats. You name it, every f—king thing. And you know what the kicker is?

Minister promises $14M more for corrections after union complains about overcrowding

Manitoba’s justice minister has promised more resources after the union for corrections officers said Friday inmate overcrowding and chronic short staffing is putting lives at risk.

“Help’s on the way, our government has focused on hiring up as many new corrections officers as we can and we want to continue to build on that work,” Matt Wiebe told reporters.

Wiebe revealed the province will spend an additional $14 million on corrections in the 2026-27 budget, which is to be unveiled next week.

On Friday, the union released the results of a survey of corrections officers and other jail staff that suggests there’s widespread discontent and concern about inmate overcrowding and short staffing.

For vintage sewing-machine aficionado, it’s all about seeing them stitch again

Dave Johnson, a semi-retired snowplow operator who also worked as a homebuilder, collects, repairs and uses vintage sewing machines.

PUB locks in Hydro rate increases, warns more on way

Manitoba Hydro customers can expect further upward pressure in rates as the Public Utilities Board has finalized a four per cent general rate increase — effective Jan. 1, 2026 — and approved general revenue increases of 3.5 per cent Jan. 1, 2027, and three per cent Jan. 1, 2028.

The board noted short-term financial pressure due to severe drought conditions, according to a news release late Thursday.

In 2025, water flows approached the second-lowest levels in 112 years, the release said.

Between filing the application in March 2025 and oral hearings in November, Hydro’s outloook worsened by more than $600 million — from a projected net income of $218 million to a projected loss of $409 million, the board’s release said.

Downtown mulls uncertain impact of Fairmont downtime

As the Fairmont Winnipeg hotel prepares to close its doors this summer for a months-long renovation project, surrounding businesses say they’re waiting to see what the impact will be on Winnipeg’s downtown.

Any time Palomino Club owner Christian Stringer books an act outside of the province, he’ll set them up at the Fairmont — most recently, DJ Pauly D of Jersey Shore fame — and a chunk of his customer base is out-of-towners staying at the nearby hotel looking for a bit of fun.

“(The Fairmont) has always been the five-star (hotel) for us,” Stringer said Thursday.

He said he’s not sure how much the hotel closing from July until spring of 2027 will affect business. He worries it might complicate bringing in performers from outside of Canada — a practice he’s already had to cut back on as the Canadian dollar has made it harder to meet the asking price of U.S. acts.

Canada’s population has dropped for the first time since Confederation: StatCan

OTTAWA - Statistics Canada's latest estimates suggest Canada's population declined last year for the first time since Confederation, due primarily to a drop in the number of non-permanent immigrants.

The estimates suggest Canada's population lost about 102,000 people in 2025.

That loss came after the non-permanent resident population fell by more than 171,000 individuals between Oct. 1, 2025, and Jan. 1, 2026.

Cristobal D'Alessio, a spokesperson for Statistics Canada, said 2025 was the first calendar year to see an estimated decrease in the population since Confederation.

David Suzuki is turning 90. Environmentalists may have ‘lost, big time,’ but he still has hope

David Suzuki admits defeat — at least in some respects.

The geneticist-turned-environmentalist, who is days away from his 90th birthday, reflected on his legacy as he prepared to release his latest book, "Lessons from a Lifetime," which compiles photos and stories from his life, as well as testimonials written by those he inspired.

"To me, the important legacy that I want to tell my grandchildren is, look, I tried. I love you. I did the best I could for you. And I tried," he said on a video call last month.

"The measure of a person is not whether they succeeded — because we've lost, environmentalists have lost, big time — but that we tried."

How Canadian box-office hit ‘Undertone’ got to the screen without public funding

TORONTO - Personal grief, a potentially haunted house and a sound-driven sense of dread helped turn “Undertone” into one of the year’s most unexpected horror hits.

But the biggest twist? The director says he made the film with no government money after his previous work was rejected by Canada’s public film funders.

The Toronto-shot film opened to $9.3 million at the North American box office over the weekend — a scary good debut for a movie made on a $500,000 budget.

For director Ian Tuason, his debut feature’s unlikely path to the big screen is also a quiet critique of how Canadian films get financed.

Twitter shareholder case accusing Musk of driving down stock goes to jury

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Closing arguments concluded Tuesday in a trial pitting Elon Musk against Twitter shareholders who say the world's richest man engaged in a pattern of deceptive behavior that misled investors as he attempted to back out of his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform in 2022.

The case is now in the hands of eight jurors, who will decide whether Musk is liable for defrauding investors with tweets and statements he made in the months leading up to his purchase of Twitter.

The civil trial in San Francisco centers on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, which he later renamed X, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share. The price represents a sliver of the Tesla CEO's fortune, now estimated at $837 billion.

Much of the trial focused on Musk's claims about the number of bots on Twitter. Musk testified, as he long contended, that Twitter had a much higher number of fake and spam accounts than the 5% it disclosed in regulatory filings. He used what he called Twitter's misrepresentation of the number of fake accounts on its service as a reason to retreat from the purchase.